Weekly Web Harvest (weekly)

“I don’t see myself as a real game developer. I make games because it’s fun, and because I love games and I love to program, but I don’t make games with the intention of them becoming huge hits, and I don’t try to change the world. Minecraft certainly became a huge hit, and people are telling me it’s changed games. I never meant for it to do either. It’s certainly flattering, and to gradually get thrust into some kind of public spotlight is interesting.

“As Samuel Johnson once wrote: “Some are always in a state of preparation, occupied in previous measures, forming plans, accumulating materials and providing for the main affair. These are certainly under the secret power of idleness. Nothing is to be expected from the workman whose tools are for ever to be sought.””

Not only do authors of negatively-evaluated con-tent contribute more, but also their future posts are oflower quality, and are perceived by the community assuch. Moreover, these authors are more likely to sub-sequently evaluate their fellow users negatively, perco-lating these effects through the community. In contrast,positive feedback does not carry similar effects, and nei-ther encourages rewarded authors to write more, nor im-proves the quality of their posts. Interestingly, the au-thors that receive no feedback are most likely to leavea community.

“”[A] kimono is made from exactly one bolt of fabric. The way the pattern of a kimono is constructed, not one scrap of fabric remains after the garment is completed. Once the kimono showed signs of wear, it began a long line of transformations – from Sunday best to an everyday item of clothing. When it was further worn, the kimono would be used as a sleeping gown or shortened to make an outdoor jacket. When further worn, the jacket would be turned into a bag or an apron. Finally, layers of scraps were sashiko quilted together into dust cloths. But sashiko was also used to strengthen fabric and in the north, it was used to secure layers of fabric together for protection against the elements. What began as utilitarian stitching began to be used as a decorative element as well and patterns evolved from the daily lives of the quilters.”

— Sashiko by Cortney Heimerl (via lizettegreco)”
“”[A] kimono is made from exactly one bolt of fabric. The way the pattern of a kimono is constructed, not one scrap of fabric remains after the garment is completed. Once the kimono showed signs of wear, it began a long line of transformations – f…

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cc licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo shared by Tom Woodward I wrote this in response to Gardner’s post here and in particular this quote from Thomas Merton that Gardner referenced. “[A publisher asked me to write something on ‘The Secret of Success,’ and I refused.] If I had a message to my contemporaries, I said, it was surely this: Be anything you like, be madmen, drunks, and bastards of every shape and form, but at all costs avoid one thing: success. … If you have learned only how to be a success, your life has probably been wasted. If a university concentrates on producing successful people, it is lamentably failing in its obligation to society and to the students themselves.” On reflection, this is a bit much for a comment (so now it’s a post) and probably somewhat hyperbolic but maybe it’ll spur some interesting conversation. My response certainly sounds like a keynote (not enough gray).I’m happy to take your money for saying ridiculous things. I can also claim I give homework so you’re kids will be like the responsible farm children of yore. Just send the checks. I read it more as an indictment of the definition of “success” in a corrupt/broken system as a kind of failure rather than advocating allowing for failure as a way […]

The Rise of Twitter Bots : The New Yorker “What drives affection for Tofu is less narcissism than reliable ersatz companionship in Twitter’s crowded, cliquey lunchroom; Tofu Product is everyone’s imaginary friend.” “One of my first bots was Exosaurs, which combined Wikipedia’s list of dinosaur species and the Kepler telescope’s list of confirmed exoplanets—both freely available datasets—into an hourly feed of extrasolar mega-reptiles. The bot also credits each Exosaur “discovery” to one of its followers—“ryanpeeler, Gyposaurus of HD 290327 b”—creating a low-grade sweepstakes of speculative biology. When Exosaurs failed to recognize the programmer Ramsey Nasser after a few days, he created the bot “Fuck Exosaurs” to spew profanities at Exosaurs until it awarded him Santanaraptor of PSR B1257+12 c. Soon afterward, the novelist and coder Robin Sloan created Exoriders, which assigns each new Exosaur an intrepid galactic travel-mate, deepening the lore of an accidental universe. Exosaurs now has a community site, a leaderboard, and Exoslash—a bot I made to respond to Robin’s bot with auto-generated Exorider erotica. Richard Dunlop-Waters later made Law & Order: EXO to demonstrate that this kind of one-upmanship can only lead to brutal space murder.” h/t Jon Becker tags: twitterbot weekly mechanized Twitter Fan Wiki / Bots Old but interesting examples of types and examples of Twitterbots. Considering building a response bot. tags: twitterbot list weekly […]